A novel approach based on untargeted lipidomics reveals differences in the lipid pattern among durum and common wheat

•Untargeted metabolomics revealed differences between common and durum wheat lipidome.•The statistical models were validated by using two independent sample sets.•Authentic durum wheat and adulterated admixture (3% adulteration) were discriminated.•Putatively identified markers were evaluated applying ROC curves, giving AUC >90%.

In the present work the possibility of using an untargeted metabolomic strategy to discriminate between common and durum wheat lipidome for an authenticity purpose was explored. A first study was conducted by analyzing 52 samples from two durum and common wheat varieties. Afterwards, an extended and independent sample set (173 samples and five varieties) was used as a confirmatory study to verify the stability and consistency of the models obtained. Putatively identified markers were evaluated applying ROC curves resulting in individual marker AUC >90% both in preliminary and confirmatory study. In addition, digalactosyl diglyceride (DGDG) 36:4 was shown to be an effective marker differentiating between authentic durum wheat and its adulterated admixture down to 3% adulteration level, which is the maximum contamination level allowed by Italian legislation. The results demonstrated that untargeted lipidomics, in conjunction with chemometric tools has a significant potential for screening and detection of wheat fraud.

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